Author: Audrey Kettler

You can travel nearly anywhere in the world and maybe even to space—without ever leaving your neighborhood: Just release a geocaching trackable and watch it move!A trackable is a geocaching game piece that travels from geocache to geocache. By sending a trackable off on a mission, you can see the world through other geocachers’ logs and photos!

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A major milestone like 3 million geocaches is the perfect excuse to make an infographic. Who doesn’t love infographics?!

In all seriousness, this achievement is thanks to efforts by people all around the world. Collectively, they contributed millions of hours of time — time spent researching hiding spots, making containers, reviewing caches, hosting events, cleaning up the environment, and more. The result is more than 3 million geocaches. It’s 3 million experiences as interesting and varied as the people who created them!

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Way to go, geocachers! As of now, there are officially 3 million active geocaches hidden on Planet Earth.*

This is a big moment in geocaching history. What’s even more amazing is that it happened because of a collective effort by millions of people. They speak different languages and live in different countries, but all share one thing in common: geocaching.

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Last September, we shared our plans to retire the Geocaching Classic app.In this announcement, we wrote:

We originally planned to shut off the Geocaching Classic app in September 2016. If it’s not clear already, you’ve convinced us otherwise… [The] Geocaching® app is missing some of the most requested features: offline and trail maps, log types, draft logs and favorite points. We are working to complete these features by March 2017.

Since then, we’ve been busy adding the most requested features into the Geocaching® app:

As both the app’s developers and geocachers ourselves, we’re excited about these upgrades and we think you will be too. Here at Geocaching HQ, we remain committed to building the best tools and services for geocachers to create, share, and play this game. We will continue to make updates and enhancements to the Geocaching® app as we move forward.

It’s time to retire the Geocaching Classic app

With the addition of the features listed above, it is now time to fully retire the Geocaching Classic app. On March 23, 2017, the app will no longer function. You will be unable to run searches, get updated information about geocaches, or submit any logs using the app.

The Geocaching Classic app was developed in 2008. Over the past nine years, mobile phone and app technologies have changed significantly. The Classic app was built on code that no longer can support the dynamic functionality geocachers want and need. Therefore, our sole focus moving forward will be on improving the Geocaching® app.

The sustainable code that makes up the Geocaching® app allows for much more flexibility and growth for both the app and geocaching as a whole. We want to keep making awesome tools to help geocachers create and play this game, and the new Geocaching® app gives us the ability to do just that.

We don’t want anyone to be surprised or unable to geocache on that day so if you are an active user of the Classic app, we encourage you to download the Geocaching® app to start experiencing new features like Message Center, driving directions, and more.

What’s next for the Geocaching® app

Like we mentioned earlier, we’re not done with this app—far from it. We’ll continue to add new features (and update existing ones) based on feedback and suggestions from the geocaching community.

The Geocaching® app (and other tools including the website and support of third party apps) are made possible through the ongoing support of Premium members. In appreciation of this, some mobile features are reserved as a perk of Premium membership. Premium members have access to all geocache listings, advanced filtering options, offline navigation, favorite points, and more.

We strive to provide a great geocaching experience for as many players as we can and we will continue to take your feedback earnestly.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this update. We encourage you to check out the Geocaching® app, try out the new features, and let us know what you think.